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If they'd offered New Coke under a different name alongside the old kind, it probably would have done well. But when you tell someone they can *never have something they like ever again* it makes a difference. And one trouble with taste tests is that a new item might taste better for a change but not wear well.
I think the biggest cause of the whole mess was that Coke and Pepsi weren't simply trying to sell the most overall, but to have the single best-selling product of its kind. Selling two versions of Coke would split the vote, so to speak, even though it probably would make for higher combined sales. They've long ago given that up.
There was also some sort of shenanigans going on with how bottlers were paid (or how bottlers paid the main company, whichever way around it went.) Some open-ended deal that only applied to Coca-Cola (not to diet Coke, or Sprite, or TaB, etc.) and didn't take inflation into account. I don't remember exactly, but the idea was that they're still making the same product, it's just made differently now, so the old rules still applied. If I remember rightly, the bottlers got them back when it switched the other way: because the company had insisted it was the name that was important, calling the reintroduction "Coke Classic" made it a new product. If that's not right, it's close, but I don't have that book anymore. Which is too bad, because it also explains things like why the name of the company is not the Coca-Cola Company, but instead The Coca-Cola Company. The capital "The" was a bit of trickery without which the product wouldn't even have lasted to the 20th Century. Or so the story goes.
I think the biggest cause of the whole mess was that Coke and Pepsi weren't simply trying to sell the most overall, but to have the single best-selling product of its kind. Selling two versions of Coke would split the vote, so to speak, even though it probably would make for higher combined sales. They've long ago given that up.
There was also some sort of shenanigans going on with how bottlers were paid (or how bottlers paid the main company, whichever way around it went.) Some open-ended deal that only applied to Coca-Cola (not to diet Coke, or Sprite, or TaB, etc.) and didn't take inflation into account. I don't remember exactly, but the idea was that they're still making the same product, it's just made differently now, so the old rules still applied. If I remember rightly, the bottlers got them back when it switched the other way: because the company had insisted it was the name that was important, calling the reintroduction "Coke Classic" made it a new product. If that's not right, it's close, but I don't have that book anymore. Which is too bad, because it also explains things like why the name of the company is not the Coca-Cola Company, but instead The Coca-Cola Company. The capital "The" was a bit of trickery without which the product wouldn't even have lasted to the 20th Century. Or so the story goes.
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